Debate: Did Obama Contribute to the Rise of Trump?

Who or what put Donald Trump in the White House? Did Trump tap into existing support? Did President Obama move the country too far left?

This is Bold’s second debate! (Watch last week’s debate on privatizing medicare here.)

With our own Clay Aiken moderating, Carrie Sheffield and Alyona Minkovski debate if Obama created a Trump success. Before you watch our debate, feel free to watch our debate prep with our Business Editor David Grasso.

Here are some quotes from Carrie’s opening statement:

“When Barack Obama took office, he said he wanted to fundamentally transform America. Well, he got what he wished for. Make no mistake, Donald J. Trump, the President-Elect, is the legacy of President Barack Obama…for many different reasons. Because of a very flawed Iranian nuclear deal,…Obama also created a vacuum that gave rise to ISIS… a vacuum, a lack of leadership and a lack of strength…Obama doubled our national debt…The employment statistics…[is] the worst it’s been since the Jimmy Carter era. So I would argue that Barack Obama is actually the next Jimmy Carter, and we see what Jimmy Carter created: he created Ronald Reagan…So the reality is that many Democrat are in denial about the fact that it was policy, actual substance, that lead to the victory of President-Elect Donald Trump.”

Here are some quotes from Alyona’s opening statement:

“When asking whether or not President Obama is to blame for President-Elect Donald Trump, maybe we should be asking ourselves why we keep using blame as a tactic to ignore our political realties…Rather than embracing nuance and complexity, w’ere asking ourselves to strip away context, to dumb things down. Blame is the easy way out, and that was one of the keys to Donald Trump’s victory. Like so many other world leaders…he was able to play upon insecurity and fear, and blame societal woes on groups of others, rather than force Americans to really truly examine themselves…We ignore the facts when it’s convenient so we don’t have to confront what might make us uncomfortable…So if we really want to look at the election of Donald Trump, I say that we should examine racism and patriarchy and economic anxiety and income inequality…all of it…Blames lies not on anyone’s individual shoulders but on all of our shoulders.”